Hybrids making EMF-sensitive people sick?

[bwilson4web]

Originally Posted by RobH

. . .
She clearly didn't do much confirmation of the Sudbury story. But Sudbury has nothing to do with her personal experience.

Sudbury is a pattern we find in hybrid skeptics, often Libertarians.

Originally Posted by RobH

. . .Her headaches and the EMF meter are direct experiences. . . .

What is the make and model of her "EMF meter?"

There is a condition called "Hysterical Paralysis" in which the patient experiences symptoms with 'no known neurologic cause.' I have no doubt that such symptoms extend to headaches:

Headache and hysteria.

Merskey H.
Abstract

The concepts of Hysteria, Hypochondriasis and Hysterical Personality are reviewed and their relationship to pain and headache examined. It is further noted that many patients with supposed "tension headache" do not respond to measures which relieve anxiety. Electromyographic studies indicate that "tension headache" is not associated with the expected amounts of frontalis muscle tension. It is argued that much headache cannot be explained in organic terms or as a result of muscle tension and that hysterical mechanisms are important in causing it.

PMID: 7346173 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

But of course, I'm not a physician but an engineer. She may truly be a biological EMF detector and as such needs to be studied . . . perhaps in a hospital environment. Yes, a University research institution:

I'm not saying she is nuts but rather skills like hers need to be quantified. For example, are there particular frequencies that affect her more than others?

Bob Wilson

[JimboPalmer]

Originally Posted by RobH

Nobody seems to be denying that she got headaches

I would love to, as I suspect her of being a shill, but we have no more scientific proof she is a shill than she has that EMF causes her headaches.

I would love to give her an 'EMF meter' that is remote controllable to see if she is claiming headaches she does not have, (or self suggesting headaches she does have, unrelated to EMF) but sadly, she is not doing a valid test, it is a just publicity stunt, so we can't do 'science' on her claims in a internet forum. The best we can do is point out all the ways it CAN be wrong, and why it is bad science.

[qbee42]

Originally Posted by RobH

I'd like to see how she responds to a Highlander Hybrid.

The scientific method that you suggest makes an assumption that everyone responds in the same way. If there are important variables that we don't control for, then all the other controls and precision are for naught. Confirmation that something occurs multiple times adds confidence to an explanation, but single occurrences are not disproved by an inability to duplicate. A single occurrence proves that something can happen, which is infinitely more frequent than never. Inability to duplicate casts doubt, but it doesn't disprove.

<snip>

How so? Bob suggested running additional tests with the subject, not other people. There are no additional people to support the "...everyone responds in the same way" comment. Only one person.

Scientific method suggests running additional tests on the subject. Ideally they would be double-blind, meaning that neither the subject or the observer would know whether fields were present. She would be presented with a number of identical trials, each differing by the amount and type of EMF exposure. If she is really susceptible to EMF a correlation would emerge.

Tom

[HolyPotato]

She clearly didn't do much confirmation of the Sudbury story. But Sudbury has nothing to do with her personal experience. Her headaches and the EMF meter are direct experiences.

Well, the Sudbury story is easy to understand, and has been debunked many times... yet she got it wrong. If she can't do the research on that topic, what hope do we have of her finding good information on EMFs and their biological effects, a highly controversial field where even the leading scientists can't agree on what the story is.

And her headaches are a personal experience, but we can't even say that the EMF readings are because she didn't give enough information to indicate that she knew how to use the meter properly (e.g., no mention of frequency, just field strength). She could be essentially looking at a random number generator for all we know, and found a chance correlation.

I contacted Kent Shadwick (quoted in the NYT article from 2008) when it was first released and asked him for his raw measurements, since he seemed to be the only one in that article that actually took steps to do a good measurement. Unfortunately he wouldn't share.

Then in 2009 I saw a presentation by G. Schmid explaining their testing procedure of hybrids and regular cars, and these were my notes from that presentation (I haven't checked yet to see if they've published their measurements):

G. Schmid and colleagues from the Austrian Research Centres in Seibersdorf have measured the fields in a Gen2 Prius under various conditions and reported the results at an international conference.

The exposure frequencies can go up to 1000 Hz due to some of the power switching. They found that near the floor in the backseat the exposure was highest, averaging 10% of the permissable general population chronic exposure according to the ICNIRP guidelines (which are frequency dependent), and could reach 30% in the maximum case (a switch from maximum acceleration to maximum braking). Even just at lap level the exposure is <5% of the guidelines (since children have short legs, this is perhaps the more appropriate measure).



They accounted for the effect of the tires (rotating tires with steel belts/cables in the makeup produces magnetic fields of up to 4% of the guideline exposure), which would be present in all cars. They also compared to some conventional cars — and the Audi A4 and VW Passat both had significantly higher exposures than the Prius! In fact, the Audi A4 exceeded the ICNIRP guideline in some conditions. The main source of exposure in those cars was from the air conditioning systems, which are “not as sophisticated” in their electrical management as in the Prius. One factor in particular that they mentioned was that the conventional cars tended to use the chassis as a current return, whereas the Prius has dedicated, shielded wiring loops that return to the battery.


In other hybrids it was found that magnetic field exposure does not correlate with installed electric motor power — the Honda Civic Hybrid has nearly 3X as much magnetic field exposure as the Prius does.


For comparison, another presenter looked at exposures on British Rail cars (not the underground — the motors are in locomotives separate from the passenger cars) and found that the fields were also in the 5-10% of ICNIRP guidelines range.

In the backseat, right above the battery they were able to measure a slight increase. So in the driver's position, there should be negligible difference between a hybrid and a regular car in terms of EMF, yet she claims to have found one. Personally, I'll trust the Austrian engineering team's measurements.

Originally Posted by qbee42

Scientific method suggests running additional tests on the subject. Ideally they would be double-blind, meaning that neither the subject or the observer would know whether fields were present. She would be presented with a number of identical trials, each differing by the amount and type of EMF exposure. If she is really susceptible to EMF a correlation would emerge.

Yep. Unfortunately most people who claim to be affected by EMFs can't actually tell when they're on when tested double-blind.

Nobody seems to be denying that she got headaches. They don't even seem to be denying that they stopped when she avoided the Prius. What are alternative explanations for her experience? If we shout down her explanation, will that make her symptoms go away? Or just resolve our own inability to explain what happened?

I love my new Prius tonnes, but the placement of the rearview mirror is horribly low. Maybe she kept repeatedly ducking her head down to look under/around the stupid thing to check for pedestrians on her right side, and gave herself headaches that way? Maybe she needs constant noise, and the intermittent silence of the engine turning off gave her headaches? Maybe she was under stress from buying a new car, or was facing a publication deadline at the time, and the car had nothing to do with it? Maybe the rear spoiler was blocking the headlights of cars behind her to some extent, and the flashing on/off of lights in her peripheral vision gave her headaches? Maybe she hates digital speedometers?

There are dozens or hundreds of potential reasons. For herself, she got rid of the car, and the headaches stopped, and that's as much explanation as she needs for her own self. The problem is solved. Where I step in and get onery is when she starts pointing the finger at something she doesn't understand, and unjustly scares people away from something that can help them and the planet. The last thing the general public needs is more irrational fear.

It is because of the immense commercial interest in the safety of EMF that I think we need to be extra vigilant about the possibilities of real problems. Maybe EMFs cause everybody a little more inflammation, and this lady is the "dead canary in the coal mine". The anomalies are the interesting cases.

But there's also a lot of very bad information out there about EMFs, and it does nobody justice to propogate scare science (check out the comments that have since come up on her page -- she now insinuates the Prius caused a brain tumour in someone!). We know for a fact that hybrids are a valuable way for people to save gas and money in meeting their transportation needs without any sacrifices (though of course there are even greener ways involving small sacrifices in range and/or sweat). And there seems to be an immense commercial interest working against them. It does no good to plant unfounded fears about this technology in the lay public. Let them focus on cellphones and wifi if they want to worry about something.

[jayman]

I used to do EMF/EMI compliance testing for a living, around 15 years ago. This story makes me giggle

[Flaninacupboard]

Originally Posted by RobH

Nobody seems to be denying that she got headaches. They don't even seem to be denying that they stopped when she avoided the Prius. What are alternative explanations for her experience? If we shout down her explanation, will that make her symptoms go away? Or just resolve our own inability to explain what happened?

My girlfriend used to own a smart car, whenever i drove it i got a pain in my hip! i'd never driven a car with a three cylinder engine before - but i think the different vibration pattern from the engine caused my hip pain! it went away when she swapped to a mondeo! PROOF!

[KK6PD]

Originally Posted by FL_Prius_Driver

I wonder what the strength of the earth's magnetic field is?

The strength of the field at the Earth's surface ranges from less than 30 microteslas (0.3 gauss) in an area including most of South America and South Africa to over 60 microteslas (0.6 gauss) around the magnetic poles in northern Canada and south of Australia, and in part of Siberia.

[hill]

10 to 1 ... she gets headaches around CFL's too.

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